


Conductivity

by Vatteville



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-14 01:04:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13582728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vatteville/pseuds/Vatteville
Summary: Turns out not being able to sleep is a nuisance for other people, too. Or, one other person, anyway.





	Conductivity

You began seeing figures a while ago. Other Killers, Survivors, people you remembered from Before… Your standard hallucinatory doubles became something of a boon, as you could generally trust them to only show up when you were in a Trial. Thus, you could at least perform well enough to keep the Entity sated. You presumed It expected less of you, because though your performance had dropped considerably since first entering the Fog, It had gradually quit punishing you. Not that you  _ misbehaved  _ much, these days; all you could do was stagger in the wrong direction, or weakly shock a hook - but even on the rare occasions when you did muster the energy to rebel, It was silent. Though...

Your doubles were good indicators, but not perfect. Sometimes they failed to make an appearance even during a Trial (or perhaps they were too far away for you to see), and of course  _ then _ the Entity would show up for the post-hunt pep talk. It seemed less focused these days, more… frazzled, even, though you didn’t see what It had to be stressed about. But even with It’s divided attention, It made sure to get the message across. And each time the Entity lashed out at you, your grasp on where you were and what you were doing weakened substantially. To be frank, you weren’t sure you could survive much longer with nothing but the indirect support of incorporeal copies of yourself.

The red-striped sweater stood out to you the first time you saw it - right after entering a farmhouse door and stepping straight into Léry’s reception, at the precise moment you realized you were dreaming.

It continued to show up, the sweater, though always in your periphery, like a window-watcher or a boat on the horizon. You never caught a good glimpse of whoever was wearing it, but it didn’t really matter - as far as you were concerned, they were nothing more than a tool for gauging reality. Like your hallucinatory doubles had been, only  _ far _ more accurate - never once did the figure appear outside of a dream, and you couldn’t remember a dream without him since he first showed up.

Sometimes he flickered, like a lightbulb on the verge of burning out. You wouldn’t have noticed except for the fact that he turned towards you every time it happened, then ran off to wherever else he was going. You were surprised by this, but didn’t think much of it at first - you’d certainly had weirder dreams. But the regularity of his appearance - and reactions - started to concern you. Who was this sweatered guy, anyway, and what was he doing in your head if it seemed to annoy him so much?

You didn’t expect you’d ever receive an answer, but it was nice to have something new to think about.

* * *

You’re dreaming again, and the figure in red is rushing around the edge of your vision when he suddenly flickers. He turns towards you, as usual, only to flicker a second time. He raises a hand to make a rude gesture, which catches you off-guard. You laugh and he starts flickering at longer intervals.

This seems to enrage him, because he starts towards you, just single frames revealing his pattern of movement. It’s like a strobe light effect, like a corny haunted house, and you can’t help but laugh again.

He vanishes, but this time he doesn’t reappear.

Choking back your laughter, you stand very still to see if he’ll return, but after a moment it seems as though he’s really gone. It was fun while it lasted, you think.

Then there’s a hand on your shoulder and it very suddenly stops being fun.

He’s a short guy, certainly much shorter than you, and that’s the only thing that saves him from being blasted with all the voltage you can muster. You have to quickly angle your head down from where you expected a face to be - where you expected a  _ specific  _ face to be.

“OFF!” you spit at him, and to his credit he’s taken back his hand. You let yourself relax a little. A hand on the shoulder didn’t mean anything anymore.

Up close, you realize the sweater he’s wearing is red-and-green; hideous. He’s sort-of-smiling but you think it’s probably contemptuous; it’s not easy to tell with the scars obscuring his face. “No wonder your dreams are so unstable,” he says, gesturing at your face. His hand - the one he hadn’t touched you with - has knives on it. You can’t see well enough to examine the mechanism but you appreciate his creativity. Something like that could have really been interesting at the Institute, you think.

“My eyes are up here,” he quips, noting your interest. “We need to have a discussion.”

You grunt at him and motion at your face. Bit one-sided, you think. He chuckles, voice scratchy.

“Fine, fine.”

He snaps his ungloved fingers and the headpiece is off. Only…

It isn’t  _ really _ off. You reach up with no small effort to feel your face and somehow you can tell that what you’re feeling isn’t real, is just part of the dream.

You’re instantly fascinated, and you want to bury this clawed freak in questions, but he raises his claw-hand. “Ah-ah,” he says, waggling a knife. “I talk. You listen.”

You raise your eyebrows, but you’re willing to learn through observation.

He points to himself. “Freddy.” Gestures around. “Dream world.”

You say nothing.

His grin seems more natural now, but you could be imagining it. “I do dreams.” As if to demonstrate, he raises his arms and a flock of pigeons rises from behind him into the air, then vanishes. “And not just little magic tricks, either,” he says, suddenly drawing close and resting his claws on your chest. “I’m talking about things that  _ hurt _ .”

You think you catch his drift, and you nudge him away from you with both hands. No electricity yet, but you’re ready if he suddenly turns on you. You haven’t interacted with another Killer, another  _ real  _ Killer, in ages and ages. The Huntress didn’t even turn up in your dreams anymore. You don’t know what to expect with Freddy.

“I need dreams to get around this place,” he says, “and your staticky little headspace isn’t cutting it,  _ Doc _ . End up somewhere different every time you slip out of a dream - which, dunno if you were aware, is every two goddamn seconds! So I’m going to make myself very clear - either you fix your stupid sleep-stopper, or I do.”

You cock your head at him, utterly lost. ‘ _ You _ fix it’? ‘ _ You fix it’? _ What, did he think you had any kind of  _ control _ over whether you wore that thing or not? You realize he’s waiting for an answer and you shake your head. “Won’t let me take it off,” you say. Talking is a kind of dissonance you don’t think you’ve ever experienced; it almost hurts with how much it jars with your known reality. This  _ is  _ a dream, though, you figure. Jarring with reality is sort of the prime directive.

He blinks. “Oh?”

“I don’t know what kind of power  _ you _ have in here,” you say, embracing the ability to make yourself heard, “but  _ I  _ have exactly two options: do as the Entity says, or die.”

He frowns and taps his claws against the brim of his hat. “I didn’t expect that. You know the others are wandering, right?”

“You’re the first ‘other’ I’ve talked to since…” unable to even roughly estimate, you shake your head in irritation. “In a long time. It doesn’t matter - look. I don’t know a damn thing about the others. I know that if I take off the headpiece, the Entity forces it back on, any way it has to.”

“You’ve got restrictions outside of the Trials? That’s nuts. I thought…” He frowns more deeply. “No wonder the others never mention you. I thought you were just broken or something.”

You bristle. “ _ Broken _ ? What-”

“Well, you know, worn out. The Entity had taken too much outta you, or something. I don’t know.”

“Oh.” Shit, maybe he wasn’t too far off.

“You still do Trials, then?”

“Obviously.”

“But you’re always…  _ here _ …”

You have to think about that for a second. “I… well, if I’m hardly ever really  _ sleeping _ …”

“Then you can’t be really awake,” he finishes, nodding appreciatively. “Mystery solved. Incredibly annoying, waste-of-my-time mystery solved.”

“What do you mean, waste of your time?”

He regards you carefully. “Well. If Spiderfuck did this, there’s not much I can do.”

“You said you ‘do dreams’-”

“I do. But this isn’t really a Dream World problem.” He shrugs. “I can keep you asleep when you’re asleep - doing it right now, or I’d still be blinking in and out - but I can’t knock you out without touching you. And you know? I  _ really _ don’t wanna have to hold hands with a walking, talking Tesla coil.”

You sway a little on your feet. Come to think of it, you did feel… different. Even in that brief conversation, you were thinking faster than you had been for some time.

“You can keep me asleep?”

“That’s right.”

_ Pinch me, I must be dreaming _ , you think.  _ Oh, right. _

“Do it, then.”

“I am, moron.” He snickers.

_ Jackass. _ “No, in future, when we’re not in a Trial. You get me to sleep at intervals, and I can stay awake at intervals. Build up a sleep schedule. No more half-sleep.”

He hums and clicks his claws together. “Could work,” he admits. “But I don’t really wanna  _ monitor _ you, either…”

“Tough,” you say. “Unless you’d rather this continue.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Doc, but I’ll do it,” he says, grinning wickedly. “Wanna shake?”

He extends his knife hand and you gladly send a shock up his arm.  _ Thought you could pull one over on me, huh _ ? you think, as he glares up at you from under his fedora. What a prick. Good thing you need him, or you’d be sure to put him in his place. Course, if he steps too far out of line, you reckon you might have to, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> I want them to be friends but also neither of them deserve friends LOL!! Freddy's dialogue is ridiculously fun. :L  
> Also I know Quentin exists but fuuuuuuck off I'm not using 2010 reboot Freddy. So. This is original Freddy, but also, Quentin is in the Fog, Just Because.
> 
> Anyway. I'm in the middle of writing a fucking zombie apocalypse AU. (2012 me would be so proud.) It's like, a Real, Actual, I-Reworked-The-Character-Backstories-And-Stuff AU. So, you know, look forward to that, I guess. The Entity isn't in it (suck it, Spiderfuck) and the Killers get to be like, allies instead of enemies. It's a fun time.


End file.
